Mobile marketing explained
What is mobile marketing?
Mobile marketing involves communicating directly with mobile users via email, SMS, push notifications, and websites viewed in their preferred browser about your product and services. In Q2 of 2025, mobile accounted for 62.54% of global traffic, making mobile marketing an effective strategy to capture customers’ attention.
The mobile marketing ecosystem
The mobile marketing ecosystem encompasses digital channels, tools, and strategies to engage customers directly on their mobile devices. These digital channels are either paid or owned. Paid mobile marketing channels require you to pay advertising dollars to promote products and services through the following:
- Google search ads
- Mobile display/banner ads
- Social media ads (TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat)
Owned mobile marketing channels are managed directly by your brand. These include the following:
- Push notifications
- In-app messaging
- Mobile wallet
- SMS/MMS
- Mobile email
Mobile marketing vs. traditional digital marketing
Mobile marketing and traditional digital marketing are designed to capture your customers’ attention at different stages of the customer journey. Traditional marketing focuses on driving awareness through scheduled email campaigns or paid media ads. Mobile marketing focuses on engaging customers in real time on the devices they use most.
Let’s break down the key differences between mobile and traditional marketing:
| Mobile marketing | Traditional digital marketing |
| Targets smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches | Targets desktop and website browsers |
| Uses owned channels (SMS, RCS, in-app messages, and push notifications) | Uses paid channels (display, search, and social ads) |
| Short, personalized messaging tailored to the location | Long and more complex messaging tailored to user intent |
| Interactive and real-time | Scheduled campaigns |
| Encourages two-way communication | Encourages one-way communication |
| Focused on immediate action | Focused on long-term awareness |
| Built to keep customers coming back | Built to get clicks and visits |
Mobile marketing channels
Mobile marketing channels allow brands to send timely and relevant messages to a user’s mobile device. These messages are tailored to user behavior, preferences, and location, giving brands greater control over when, how, and why messages are delivered. The following are the most common marketing channels:
Push notifications
Push notifications are alerts sent to a mobile user’s device without requiring them to log into an app or visit a browser. Delivered in real time, these notifications prompt users with personalized reminders, promotions, or updates relevant to their needs — such as a gate change to a flight or score update from their favorite sports team.
To receive push notifications, customers must opt in during app onboarding only if they are an iOS user. Android users are automatically opted in when they download a mobile app. Both iOS and Android handle push notifications differently but support rich push notifications that deliver interactive content rather than plain text messages.
In-app messaging
In-app messaging sends messages as users engage with your brand in the mobile app. These messages can be scheduled or triggered by user behavior or a specific event, such as resetting a password or picking up an online order. Unlike push notifications and SMS, in-app messaging doesn’t require user opt-in, making it a flexible channel for delivering timely, relevant messages without disrupting the user experience.
SMS/MMS marketing
SMS/MMS marketing is a popular mobile marketing channel with an open rate of 98%. SMS (short message service), also known as text messaging, is used to send transactional or promotional messages to users without Wi-Fi. MMS (multimedia messaging service) allows users to send images, video, and audio.
Using SMS/MMS as part of your mobile marketing strategy requires you to comply with privacy regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) in the U.S., including obtaining user opt-in.
Mobile email
About 85% of users check their email on smartphones, making mobile email an essential mobile marketing channel for brands. Optimized for small screens, mobile email uses clear messages and deep links to take users from their inbox to a specific landing page in an app or website. Email also plays a key role in cross-channel orchestration, enabling brands to guide users through the customer journey across touchpoints and channels such as SMS and mobile wallets.
Mobile wallet
Mobile wallet enables brands to send digital passes, tickets, and loyalty cards to a user’s Apple Wallet or Google Wallet. These passes can include real-time updates and location-triggered notifications, such as when a customer is near a store or when an event is about to start.
Live activities and updates
Live activities provide real-time, in-progress updates directly on a user’s phone lock screen. These notifications display different content — such as live sports scores, delivery progress, or ride status — that continuously update, no matter if a user is actively using their phone or not.
App inbox/message center
An app inbox or message center is a space within a mobile app where messages are stored for users to view at any time. These allow users to check for updates or other information at their convenience. By keeping messages accessible longer, an app inbox makes it easier for brands to share important information effectively.
What are the benefits of mobile marketing?
Mobile marketing offers multiple advantages for brands looking to communicate with users where they are most: their phones. By reaching users on mobile devices, mobile marketing enables real-time engagement, personalized experiences, and measurable business outcomes across the customer journey.
Some of the most common benefits of mobile marketing include the following:
- Unmatched reach and accessibility: Connect with customers wherever they go.
- Real-time engagement and immediacy: Activate engagement at critical moments with instant mobile interactions.
- Personalization at scale: Adapt messaging based on user behavior and location.
- Higher engagement rates vs. other channels: Achieve higher engagement rates through SMS and push notifications.
- Control costs while scaling engagement: Save costs by shifting from paid media campaigns to direct mobile communication.
- Rich first-party and zero-party data collection: Collect data through surveys and forms to enrich your customer profile.
- Healthier retention and customer lifetime value: Grow it through ongoing, personalized experiences.
5 types of mobile marketing campaigns
Mobile marketing campaigns don’t always have to be transactional and promotional to get your message across to users. Below are the five most common types of mobile marketing campaigns to grow your mobile engagement and achieve results:
1. Onboarding campaigns
Onboarding mobile marketing campaigns are designed to help users understand the value of your mobile app. These campaigns guide customers through setup and how to utilize your products and services.
For example, an onboarding campaign could be a series of in-app messages helping users navigate your mobile app.
2. Promotional campaigns
Promotional campaigns are designed to build awareness and encourage customers to purchase. These are urgent promotions sent via push notifications, email, or SMS to prompt timely engagement.
For example, a retailer might send an SMS to promote a limited-time sale or exclusive offer.
3. Transactional campaigns
Transactional campaigns are messages related to a customer’s activity or account. These can include status updates and order confirmations to ensure a smooth customer experience.
For example, a customer receives a notification about a delivery update for the lunch order.
4. Re-engagement/win-back campaigns
Re-engagement and win-back campaigns are used to re-engage with inactive customers. These campaigns focus on winning back customers’ business through personalized content and offers.
For example, an app sends a message to a user who hasn’t opened the app in weeks with a message like, “We’ve missed you. Here’s 10% off your next order.”
5. Feedback and survey campaigns
Feedback and survey campaigns collect insights directly from customers to better understand the experience they seek. These campaigns allow brands to collect first-party and zero-party data to improve their retargeting efforts based on a user’s preferences and behavior.
For example, a short in-app survey for a clothing brand might ask about a customer’s style to customize the shopping experience.
Your mobile marketing strategy checklist
Building a mobile marketing strategy requires a clear plan, the right technology, and a focus on measurable outcomes. Use this checklist to help develop an effective mobile-first strategy.
- Audit your current mobile experience: Review how customers interact with your app, messages, and mobile touchpoints to identify gaps and opportunities.
- Set clear objectives and KPIs: Define the goals of your mobile strategy tied to business outcomes and establish metrics to track success, such as engagement and conversion rates.
- Leverage cross-channel orchestration: Don’t rely on a few owned channels; pair them with a cross-channel strategy to keep a consistent experience across multiple channels.
- Build your tech stack: Invest in a mobile-first customer experience platform to orchestrate personalized journeys from one centralized place.
- Review timing and frequency, and manage fatigue: Optimize when and how often you communicate to stay relevant without overwhelming users.
- Follow mobile-first content principles: Design content for small screens, quick interactions, and clear next steps.
- Measure and optimize for real results: Continuously test and refine your strategy based on what drives outcomes.
No-code and AI: The future of mobile marketing
Traditional, developer-dependent mobile marketing experiences can slow execution and limit experimentation. At Airship, our no-code journey builder empowers brands to move fast without engineering dependencies with experimentation and real, trackable ROI. Backed with AI-powered intelligence, you can orchestrate a personalized mobile-first experience with stories, embedded content, and Scenes without a single line of code.
Grow the mobile way with Airship
Ready to turn mobile engagement into business results? With Airship’s mobile-first customer experience platform, you can orchestrate personalized campaigns across push, in-app messaging, SMS, email, and more — all from one centralized, no-code platform. Schedule a demo today to see how Airship can help you grow engagement, retention, and revenue — the mobile way.